OT: Computer Question

[Lucas]

So I got a computer from a friend of mine, and would like to give it away to another friend. I was told that I need to reformat this computer before its used.

My other friend I want to give this to has no computer skills. She doesnt even know what formating a computer means.

So I myself am also pretty ignorant of many computer things.

Am I stuck going out and buying windows xp for this computer since I do not have a disc to use for the reformat?

Is there any way around spending the 150 bones its gonna take to get this thing working?

Thanks for any advice.

[MasterKiller]

The reformat is just a way to get your personal information off the hardrive so no one can access it, but even that isn't fool-proof.

If you aren't worried about her, just clean it up yourself, delete all your personal stuff, uninstall any program that may have had personal information (accounting software, etc), go into the Program Files folder and manually delete any folder related to a program you uninstalled, delete your cookies, delete your favorites, delete your temporary internet files, remove your user account (if you created one), and you should be ok.

[BruceSteveRoy]

windows xp home edition is only about 85 on ebay and www.newegg.com

[David Jamieson]

And remember that it's only a series of tubes, and then a dump truck, Bill gates invented them and Al gore took credit for them.

That's all the techie info needed.

seriously though, yeah, just erase your personal stuff, change the admin name of the admin-user account to her name keep the password for her, empty the my document, my pictures, my 'whatever' folders, through the control panel>add/remove programs feature, take out any programs you feel aren't warranted on there or tat you want to keep for yourself (photoshop, other software that is registered to you that you paid for). Close all your email accounts after you back them up and move them onto a cd or something and delete the mail accounts from outlook or whatever email program you are using, clear the internet browser cache a.

done.

if it fails a year from now or something, it will be up to her to get the new software, unless you have restore disks, in which case you will again have to redo the process above although you wiont haveto do too much software removal.

[brothernumber9]

just get a system restore disk from someone you know, or run system restore from windows, there are sometimes default restores to factory settings. If you use a restore disk from another manufacture machine, turn off SATA support in setup, make a list of all your components (vid card, sound card, other cards, peripherals,) and after installing from the system restore disk, download/update the correct drivers for the individual components.

[Lucas]

cool, i guess that sounds easy enough.

I am not sure what is on the computer, ive never used it before.

I am hoping there are'nt any viruses or anything like that on there.

I'll give it a shot.

Thanks guys

[BruceSteveRoy]

remember to delete your porn before you give it to her

[Lucas]

remember to delete your porn before you give it to her

oh, thats a good idea.

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

START------> RUN ------>Format c:\

[Pork Chop]

umm i'd use linux instead of wasting money on windows; but that's just me...

go to www.pclinuxos.com and read on how to download an .iso image and burn to cd.
boot off the cd and you can format the drive using diskdrake to be whatever filesystem you want.
you might be able to find a copy of fdisk without shelling money on winblowz too.
85's ridiculous to spend for something you're not going to use.
let her worry about buying an OS

[Lucas]

START------> RUN ------>Format c:\

whats that do?

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

It's been a long time, but it should completely erase the hardrive leaving a completely empty blank drive partition ready for a fresh OS install.

Come to think of it though, that may not work unless you booted from the CD, or used the old Dos FDISK utility from a floppy disk drive.

[B-Rad]

I don't think XP will let you reformat from windows while running windows. I'm not sure though.

[B-Rad]

If you decide to put windows back on there, might want to consider putting some kind of basic virus protection/firewall on there before hooking it up to a network for re-downloading the auto-updates. I made the mistake of getting online to re-download my updates unprotected, and was swimming in viruses within the first 30 minutes. Took me a couple weeks to get everything back to normal, lol.

[Lucas]

ouch, thanks for the virus idea.